I'll Fly Away
by TheMourningMadam
Summary: The world ruled by the Light is nothing like Hermione had once imagined. When one-time heroes turn to savagery and malice, she makes a split second decision to save a man's life. Draco had wished for the sweet caress of Death to end his suffering but soon finds love from whom he least expected. (ON HIATUS AS OF 31/1/20)
1. Barbarism

_Author's Note: If_ _you have triggers of any kind, this story may not be for you. It includes:_ _ **characters navigating through thoughts of death (sometimes suicidal thoughts, sometimes praying for the suffering to end), character deaths of ANY age, dub con, physical abuse, mental torture, attempted non con, generalized dark and, at times, morbid imagery, coarse language and slight BDSM elements (pain kink, mostly); self-mutilation; an unhappily ever after (or a bittersweet ending, depending on your viewpoint), where the ending is very similar to the of Romeo and Juliet; scenes leading up to a presumed double suicide (I can absolutely spoil the end for you by telling you that I have a oneshot posted to ao3 called "Anoint" that is going to be expanded to be the end of this story. Feel free to venture there and check it out if you really need to see how it ends and see if you'd be able to handle this. It will not be any more graphic than the last line of that story). If you have any other trigger that I may have missed, perhaps err on the side of caution. *This is my only warning for the entirety of the story, so do not review saying something wasn't warned.* And yes, I know I'm using a quote from the Bible to set the tone for this story, but it fits this story entirely.**_

" _ **And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove!**_

 _ **for then would I fly away, and be at rest!"**_

 _ **~Psalm 55:6 (KJV)**_

 **4 December 2003**

Hermione Granger knew this day would come eventually—his name had been on the roster for nearly five years. The words on the flyer shouldn't have been a shock to her. She'd testified on his behalf and argued against the skewed version of justice that had convicted him without trial or questioning. She'd watched as he'd been handed his sentence – internalized the way his shoulders slumped forward – and his mother's screeches still rang clear as a bell through her mind.

Narcissa had been hanged on the fourth of April, two years prior.

His sentencing was the last time she had laid eyes on the wizard and he had mumbled a quiet, " _Thanks for nothing, Granger,"_ as he had passed her on the way back to his cell, his shackles rattling with each shuffling step. She read and reread the words—willing them to change before her very eyes—but they remained harsh and glaring on the parchment.

 _Malfoy, Draco Lucius_

 _Death Eater_

 _Guilty in connection to the deaths of 6 Muggles,_

 _3 Muggle-borns, and beloved wizard, Albus Dumbledore_

 _Sentenced to Death by Hanging_

 _6 December 2003_

The public executions advocated by the Ministry turned her stomach. Once a month, four Death Eaters were dragged into Wulfric Square—a courtyard built into the Ministry's new compound in the center of London. Massive iron maiden-shaped cages had been erected to hold the prisoners upright and the public was invited to torture, maim, and inflict harm on them—so long as they did not cast the Killing Curse.

The animalistic behavior was contradictory to the world she had fought so valiantly to build during and immediately following the War. The Light had dimmed, and every public execution brought them a little closer to the Death Eaters' level of savagery. The rallies lasted from sun up to sun down the day before the hangings and were direct resemblances of the Death Eaters' revels. To further her mental anguish, her two best friends—the other two-thirds of the famed "Golden Trio—were the ones leading the brutalizing campaign.

Harry and Ron had come through the War and joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as Auror trainees nearly immediately. It quickly became evident to Hermione that they were out for blood. Countless Death Eaters were being rounded up and tossed into Azkaban: sentenced to death without a trial. The public wanted retribution for their lost loved ones and her best friends were keen to deliver. Fred Weasley's death weighed on the entire family and Ron wanted to avenge him, while every death in the War weighed on Harry and he wanted to avenge them _all_.

It turned Hermione's stomach. Of all times she'd imagined the world without Voldemort as she'd lain awake in the Forest of Dean, she'd never considered that the ruthless inhumanity would remain and reign the streets. It verged on anarchy as once-moral people brought the Death-Eaters to the cusp of their mortality for sport

Draco Malfoy's cadaveric eyes haunted her; the apparitional image of his broken countenance burned into the folds of her brain. Hermione knew he was innocent—she had been equipped with more than enough evidence to prove this to the Wizengamot at his trial—had he been allotted one. He was just one of the others in the end, swept up into a collective mind in the eyes of the public. A murderer. A torturer. A sadist.

Hermione had her doubts about the other Death Eaters: none had shown an ounce of true remorse. A few had begged for their lives in exchange for information on others (Lucius Malfoy being one—information that had been brought forth with veritaserum and torture anyway. _But Draco?_ She knew with absolute _certainty –_ not just her fierce intuition – that he was innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted.

Her eyes skimmed over the flyer once more as she retrieved her traveling cloak from a hook on her office door. She crumpled it into a ball and then set it ablaze, dropping the fireball into her waste bin. _An innocent man is going to die._ Her stomach roiled dangerously as she sprinted out of the Ministry, worried that she would be sick in front of the few stragglers that remained this late into the evening.

She stepped into the cool air of the courtyard, pulling her hood up around her face to try and block the sight of the cages looming in four corners around the fountain. In a few hours, four bodies—four human beings—would be housed within the iron bindings. One of those bodies would be without blood on his hands and she could not live with herself at the thought that she had been unable to save him.

Around the outside of the courtyard – lining the building – fairy lights sparkled in the dark night. Their pleasant twinkling was a gutting juxtaposition against the dreary stone and iron confines. It was bitter cold—a damp chill that rattled the bones deep within her body, and she was unsure of whether it was because of the cool December air or because of the knowledge that his life would be taken and she was defenseless against it.

The Ministry's jovial soundtrack of Christmas Carols rang out in the stillness as the wind picked up and it pained her to hear such carefree and joyous singing filtering into the night. Come daybreak, the small space would be filled with cheering and jeering, spewed hatred and wails of grief. She crossed the courtyard in near record time, rushing down a short, concealed alleyway that led to the streets of Muggle London. Keeping her face cast downward to avoid the reminders of the festive season, she felt her heart hardened to lead.

o-o-o

 **5 December 2003**

Draco Malfoy had spent five years of his life rotting away in his desolate cell in Azkaban. He was hardly recognizable as the once proud Malfoy heir; the poncy little twelve-year-old shit who purchased brooms to buy his way onto the Slytherin House Quidditch team. Everything had changed when he took the Mark. His life had been one long, continuous downward spiral in the seven years since that day, and he found himself wishing it would just end.

 _The sixth of December, two thousand and three._ The date that had hovered on the distance for far too many days was finally upon him. At daybreak, two guards would come to retrieve him and lead him on his walk of shame to the cage, where he would be subjected to hours of relentless torture. And then? Blissful relief by way of a hangman's noose. He would finally be free of this life—or lack thereof.

He could hear the mutterings of a few prisoners in cells nearest to his—crazed ramblings of minds gone insane. He was seated on his cot—little more than a wooden slab and a thin wool blanket—leaning against the stone wall. His head dropped back and his eyes closed as he tried to focus on the serene calm he felt at the sweet reprieve from this life—his for the taking in little more than a day's time.

It was then that _her_ face surfaced in his long-dormant mind. It had been years since he had thought of the swotty little priss. There had not been much reason for her to appear in his thoughts—waking or slumbering. Beyond her botched attempt to save his life, he had not laid eyes on her in five years.

He could clearly picture her in his mind: a petite witch with far too much hair and her nose in the air as she stepped down from her perch on the pedestal above the rest of the wizarding world to offer her noble assistance. It had backfired on her spectacularly. For the first time in her life, she had been repudiated and defeat was an ugly occurrence on her face. He had been little more than a pet project for her – one she had failed marvelously.

Draco grit his teeth as he wondered whether she would be in attendance at his farewell send off. Five years was enough to change an individual and for all he knew, she could be leading the public crusade against already-doomed Death Eaters. A phantom pain burned in his Mark and he covered it with his opposite hand.

 _Soon._ All of this would be over soon enough. The aches and pains he lived with—side effects of the repetitive rounds of torture he had endured at the hands of the other Death Eaters and the abuse of the guards here for the last half-decade. _Soon_. His mind would finally be at rest. He would not have to replay every moment of his life under the Dark Lord's thumb any longer; would not have to relive the horrors he had witnessed in his childhood home or right here in these walls of the prison at the behest of the Light.

The sound of a door cracking open and the gruff voice of a male echoed into the shared space. "Malfoy. Yaxley. Nott. Lestrange. On your feet, _now!_ "

Rising to his feet was a monumental task for his weakened body, but Draco managed. Though he shared a wall with Theo Nott, he had not physically seen him since they had entered the cells. Two guards opened his gate and Draco managed to catch a glimpse of his former best friend as he was led beyond the doors. His line of vision was blocked by two broad-shouldered wizards. "Come on you Death Eater piece of shit," one man hissed, snatching him by the shoulder.

With a wave of the second man's wand, his restraints were tightened and his wrists were fastened to the metal belt around his waist. The cuffs held anti-magic capabilities and even a well-executed wandless spell could not be attempted without dire consequences. No matter. Draco had not held a wand in so long, he often wondered how the twig would feel in his hands now. He had once felt mighty and bold with a hawthorn wand playing between his fingers, magic coursing through his veins. Now – somedays – he thought that perhaps it had all been a dream. He could scarcely remember his days at Hogwarts learning simple _Wingardium Leviosas_ and gorging on pumpkin pasties. His fingers often twitched, the muscle memory begging to be indulged just once.

Draco could barely stand on his own and as a result, he half-shuffled and was half-carried down a long corridor to the apparition point. The side-along apparition – never one of his favorite activities – made his stomach turn, but he swallowed down the bile as they stepped into a faintly lit courtyard. The morning sun was peeking through the clouds, casting a rosy hue over everything, and he thought it was almost pretty as the guards led him past where Nott was weeping within his cage. Draco glanced at his best friend from the corner of his eye and then trained his eyes on the cobblestone streets as he was led to his entrapment. Theo had once cried over a dead mouse they had stumbled across in the gardens of Malfoy Manor. He did not belong in this courtyard but he was too pure for this fucked up world.

The heavier of the two guards sneered, locking Draco within the metal pinfold. "I'll start you off right," he said, gurgling up something from deep within his throat.

With a great heave, the man spit directly in Draco's face. With his hands fastened to his waist and the tight confines of his enclosure, he could not raise his hands to wipe it away and the guard's sneer grew ever more prevalent. As the sun rose over the east side of the Ministry, Draco leaned back in his enclosure. Witches and wizards would be turning up in droves, all seeking their little piece of recompense. The wind blew through his thin prison garb and his entire body rattled and shook. A grin spread over his face as his toes began to burn with the cold. _Soon._

o-o-o

Hermione could not bring herself to watch the inhuman rituals that took place during the daylight hours the day before the executions. The acts of people she had once considered her friends and family had sent her straight to the bathroom to vomit. She had refused to participate for the last two hundred executions but this one was particularly heavy in her mind.

It was nightfall and the crowds had all thinned, forced by Ministry officials to leave their day of twisted barbarism. She peered down at the courtyard from the window in her office – the window she had frosted upon her arrival at work that morning. She had purposely arrived early – long before the prisoners had – and with greater purpose, she had stayed late. Sleep had refused to come to her the entire night before and as a result, Hermione had begun to formulate a plan on how to save him. She _had_ to save him.

The cage could only be accessed by an Azkaban official, and careful flirtation with a young Azkaban guard had afforded her the opportunity to copy his key while he was preoccupied sucking on her neck. That key had burned a hole in her pocket all afternoon as she waited for nightfall. Only one guard was left at this late hour to mill about and watch over the prisoners. He paced lazily right under her window and Hermione lifted her wand and _stupefied_ him from where she stood inside.

Acting with swift agility, she swept down a flight of stairs and entered the courtyard undetected by the unconscious guard. All four prisoners were slumped in their cages, but his head of bright white hair gave Malfoy away in the light of the moon and multi-colored fairy lights. Hermione rushed to his side and retrieved the key from her pocket. She repeated a careful sequence of clockwise and anti-clockwise turns that she had learned through a peek into the flirtatious young guard's mind and the metal clanged open.

"Malfoy," she whispered, placing her hand on his chest as his weight began to buckle without the cage to support him.

The afternoon of abuse had left him battered and broken – bleeding from more places than she could easily see. Blood pooled in a shiny puddle at his feet and caked in his hair, turning corn-silk white to rusty crimson in places. His face was swollen beyond recognition, and she knew that he had more broken bones in his face and body than she could possibly heal overnight. "Malfoy, wake up," she urged, shaking him even as she withdrew her wand and lowered him safely to the ground.

Half in the cage and half out, he was completely unconscious when she bent down. "Malfoy, I need you to get up! I don't know if I can safely apparate us both out of here without splinching you."

Her anxious ramblings did nothing to rouse him and Hermione heard laughter in the distance. He was wearing the anti-magic cuffs and she knew there was no way he could trust him without them. A small tattoo—the runic symbol for a dragon, a cheeky joke on the prison's part—was his link to Azkaban: a way of tracking him within moments should he ever attempt to run. The laughter – coming from at least two men – broke into her psyche once more and she began to panic. Without a moment more of hesitance, she lifted her wand to his neck and held the tip to the tattoo. Her eyes closed as she burned the flesh, effectively causing his skin to bubble and peel within seconds.

The sound of a man – belligerent and clearly wasted – grew closer and Hermione's panic began to rise in the back of her throat. She placed both of her hands on Malfoy's unconscious frame and closed her eyes, hoping beyond all rationale that he would not make her regret her moment of compassion.

o-o-o

 _A/N: Please review! A huge measure of gratitude is to be extended to_ _ **PartyLines!**_ _I can never thank you enough for your colorful and incredibly detailed notes!_


	2. Saving Grace

_Author's Note: I'd say I'm sorry. But I'm not. It's necessary for the story. I swear._

 **5 December 2003**

Malfoy's body landed with a thick thud in the cellar of Hermione's London townhome. She stumbled and fell directly on top of him, hearing bones in his ribs crack sickeningly—from prior abuse or a new injury she had unwittingly caused, she did not know. She scrambled to her knees beside him, using her wand to light the single bulb above her. By its dim light, she was afforded the first look she'd had of him in five years.

He was completely unconscious and his body had sustained massive injuries from his prolonged torture. The majority of the wounds had stopped bleeding on their own, but he was covered in smears of crimson and copper all over his body. His face was swollen with knots and bruises and she tenderly traced her finger over it, trying to assess where the bones were broken. "Fuck, Malfoy," she stammered, leaning back on her heels and looking over his broken frame, refusing to let hopelessness sink in just yet.

Her hands were trembling as she lifted them to summon a large basin and some dittany. The cuffs were secured around his wrists—fastened to an iron belt around his waist. Hermione knew she would have to remove them one at a time to clean his arms and search for errant wounds, but the thought had her stomach turning. Even one wrist out of its restraint would be enough to gather the strength for a wandless spell—weak as it would be.

Her eyes flickered to Malfoy's face, lulled to the side. His breaths were rattling up from his chest and blood from his internal injuries bubbled in his throat. Carefully, she undid one cuff and placed it next to her knee. She dipped the cloth into the warm water before bringing it over the stains on his porcelain skin. There were deep gashes running along his arms, marring the dark outline of his Mark until it was virtually unrecognizable.

Choking down the rising bile, she dabbed at it gingerly, whispering a scouring charm the entire time. He was still wearing the oversized prison attire; the white stripes nearly indeterminable from the black in the wake of his great blood loss. She vanished it, leaving only the iron belt, and quickly covered his groin with a clean cloth to give him modesty. His entire body was covered in long scratches and lacerations: some fully healed to white or violent purple, some in varying stages of healing and some brand new, with ribbons of blood curling and dancing down toward the ground where he lay.

Hermione could not believe that this was reality; that she had fought a _War_ to avoid atrocities such as this—to no avail. She was kneeling on the floor next to Draco Malfoy—who was a few shallow breaths from his last, having been brought to this state by her _friends_. Harry, who had worried endlessly for the humanity of their small chunk of the universe as they had fought desperately to sever Voldemort's deadly clutch on the wizarding world. Ron, who had run during the Horcrux hunt because he worried so endlessly for his family's lives; who had once kissed her with an endearing uncertainty and bashfulness. Ginny, who knew what it was to be possessed by evil and had worked desperately to overcome such a horrific experience. Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Molly and Arthur, George, Kingsley…the list of offenders leading the crusade grew ever longer with every press release and interview Harry and Ron gave.

For all of the terrible, cold-hearted individuals, there was a handful of those who were resistant. Those who tried to push peace, justice, and humility. She led that campaign, alongside a few old friends—Minerva, Hagrid, Neville, Luna, Charlie, and Ernie among them. Their voices were drowned out in hatred, with most people refusing their methods. No one wanted justice in its rightful state—only blood and retribution.

Hermione worked as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. Her time was spent in the veritable "Love" room—the chamber behind the locked door that had once melted Harry Potter's penknife. While other Unspeakables in this sect studied the effects of the strongest love potions known to the wizarding world, Hermione spent her time researching how love could fester within one's heart and bloom into a gruesome hatred.

It had taken years for her to come to grips with the fact that Dumbledore—their quirky, wise, seemingly righteous Headmaster—had been spurred by hatred, desire for power, and an evil deep within his soul. Her friends simply could not understand what she now knew; Dumbledore was still their hero, a vigilante who died valiantly in the battle against Voldemort.

Hermione had lain awake many nights – the results of her day's research swirling about in her head – wondering bitterly when she'd begun to sympathize with Death Eaters regarding the motives of the Light. Immense unease and discontent weighed on her psyche at the thought. _Dark. Light._ They were two sides of the same coin; the same malevolent discontent and loathing goading them into action.

She looked down at Malfoy once more—naked and battered to the brink of death. As she wiped the blood from his face, she noted the way his eyes were swollen shut. Whispering every healing spell she could muster, she began to drag the tip of her wand over his face, each swipe taking a little of the swelling away. Each _episkey_ brought the repugnant sound of his bones cracking and chinking back into place, causing Hermione to shudder.

When the cracking stopped and her wand refused to reduce any more of the distention in his face she focused on his chest and legs. Disgusted with herself that she may have caused his further injury she repeated her healing spells, stopping only to knit the flesh of the open lacerations before moving to the next broken bone.

When the blood finally stopped blooming like grotesque petals on his flesh and the bones all clinked back into place with his skin neatly sewn shut, she sat back on her heels once more. Violet and green bruises covered nearly every inch of his skin and his arm was sliced and severed in a horrific kaleidoscopic pattern over his Mark. Hermione brought her wand to his hair and ran cool water over it, watching as the blood was rinsed from his white blond locks. It ran in rivulets in the cracks between the stone flooring in her cellar and she watched, mesmerized as it danced toward the grate of a drain.

The silence in the cellar was broken when Malfoy let out a groaning whimper akin to an injured animal. She leaned over him, fastening the restraint around his wrist should he get a sudden burst of adrenaline. "Malfoy? Can you hear me?"

A grunt accompanied a turn of his head and his eyes fluttered open in their puffy encasements. He mumbled the first half of her surname in a rasp before Hermione had to fall backward out of the way as he leaned onto his side and began vomiting up blood. With his attempt to roll, Hermione turned her head and stood with her back to him, attempting to give him some privacy. When the sound of his heaving ceased, she waved her wand and vanished his sick. "Where am I?" came his scratchy voice.

Now that he was awake – however weak and pitiful – Hermione's blood began rushing behind her ears once more. _What have I done?_ Her hands were trembling and she tried to busy them in cleaning up the mess of cloths and blood on the floor around him. Wholly unready to face him, she mumbled a quiet, "The cellar."

"Why?" he asked and let out another loud moan as he tried to sit up.

Hermione looked at the storage shelves of food jars in front of her, attempting to gather courage and to right her thoughts for herself before she answered any of his questions. It had been such a split-second decision that morning to save his life, a reaction to the ever-growing problem with the loss of humanity. She had ruminated over the implications all day, her drive to save his life unwavering until she finally apparated them both away.

With a brief glance over her shoulder at the crippled and misery-laden man, she began climbing the stairs leading up to her kitchen. Her home was dark save a night light plugged in by the kitchenette table. It felt peculiar to be standing in the middle of her quaint home, staring at the sunny yellow walls of the kitchen and listening to the steady drip of her always-broken faucet. When she went to the window, the world beyond her cellar had not changed. Yet, her entire world _had_ changed—she was now responsible for another human being: one who was potentially dangerous; an enemy, a criminal who would be hunted mercilessly come daybreak. Malfoy was not her friend and she needed to remember, though he may be innocent of the murders, he was still a ruthless criminal trained by the darkest witches and wizards in centuries. Her hands shook and she gripped the sink basin to steady herself as she felt her body begin to quake.

The door to the cellar was still cracked and she could hear muffled groans of agonized pain and the strangled noises as he tried to breathe. Feeling as though she herself would vomit, she pushed away from the sink and stumbled back toward her bedroom. From her chest of drawers, she dug out an old pair of George's joggers, a pair of socks and a Manchester United t-shirt. The blanket that draped the end of her bed was ripped up and balled into her arms as she shuffled back to the cellar.

Whatever adrenaline-fueled courage had kept her moving throughout the day was quickly dissipating as she stared at the cracked door. Now that he was in her home – awake – she began questioning her actions. What if he was able to break away from his confines? What if he killed her and ran? What if the Aurors showed up on her doorstep, demanding to search her home? What if he died anyway?

Scenes flitted through her mind in rapid succession and she steadied herself against the door jamb with one hand. Shivers wracked her entire being as she fought to move one foot in front of another, each step leading down to the cellar, and surely to her impending demise. She peered around the wall and saw him lifting his head to stare at the areas of his chest where she had crudely knitted gashes back together. Moving to take the final step, her foot knocked over a bucket on the last stair and the clattering caused his face to turn in her direction.

Standing in plain view, she felt exposed and vulnerable as Malfoy's eyes raked over her. She walked into the room, hugging the clothing and blanket to her chest as she moved into the dim lighting. She left a wide breadth around him as she walked—careful not to get too close. She transfigured a piece of plywood into a camp bed and put it against the wall before she spread the blanket over it, attempting to ignore the feel of his gaze on her back.

When she had completed the menial task, she turned and sat on the edge of the camp bed, looking anywhere but at him. "I brought some clean clothing," she mentioned, lifting the joggers to show him.

Malfoy mumbled something, his features contorting into an odd grimace of pain and confusion. Hermione pretended not to notice that he had spoken, thinking it best to keep their contact to a minimum as she looked at his blood caked under her thumbnail. He grunted and attempted to lean up on his elbow. "Where's Theo?" he repeated, just loud enough for her to hear this time.

Her eyes finally met his and the look he gave her was withering. "Theodore Nott?"

"Where is he?"

Hermione was not following Malfoy's train of thought one iota as the image of the Death Eater, slumped in his cage and near death, crossed her mind. "He's at the Ministry."

"You stupid _fucking_ bitch," Malfoy hissed, clutching his bruised rib cage as the trembling in his body began to intensify.

"Excuse me?" she questioned, standing and tossing the clothing onto the bed.

"You saved the wrong person," he told her as she neared him, her fear being replaced with anger.

It took everything in her not to deliver a swift kick to Malfoy's side. She had saved his life and now he was insulting her. Her thoughts were all over the place and she felt as though it were impossible for an individual to feel so many intense emotions at once. Fear turned to anger, which was blossoming into bitterness. "You're innocent," she argued, trying to keep the blue eyes and mischievous smile of a fifteen-year-old Theodore Nott out of her mind's eye.

" _Theo_ was innocent, you ignorant bint," he protested, struggling to lean forward.

"You never killed anyone. I had proof!" Hermione replied, indignant that her intelligence was being called into question by Malfoy whilst she was defending _him._

"A lack of a body count is a far cry from being innocent," Malfoy sneered, wincing as his busted lip curled.

"The Ministry had proof of Nott's involvement in the implementation of the torture of younger students when the Carrows were heading up Hogwarts. They had a memory from Alecto Carrow of Nott using the Cruciatus so forcefully that an eleven-year-old girl died!" Hermione shrieked, her voice shrill in the stillness of the cellar.

"He was under the Imperius. Theo would never willingly hurt anyone. _Never._ But I did—you saved the wrong wizard and now Theo is going to die! Because of you!" Malfoy spat at her, his anger giving him the surge of strength he needed to sit upright.

He tucked his elbows into himself, closing his eyes as the agony of his injuries overtook him, and Hermione felt her sympathy wavering as it was replaced by a leaden feeling of dread. She had never been given the opportunity to review the cases of the other Death Eaters for herself. The Ministry would give very little thought to whether he had been under the Imperius Curse, desperate to satisfy the public's thirst by supplying the bodies of any casualty necessary. If Malfoy was telling the truth, then there would still be an innocent man hanging in the courtyard come daybreak. "There's no way I can save him now—the guards were already closing in on the compound when I apparated us here!"

"His blood will be on your hands," Malfoy told her, ripping the cloth away from his groin and tossing it aside harshly. "For Merlin's fucking sake, Granger. If you're going to keep me captive down here, let me put the clothing on or I'll die of fucking hypothermia anyway."

She snatched the clothing up and threw them at him, hitting him square in the face. "You ungrateful piece of—"

"I didn't fucking _ask_ for this, Granger. I was prepared to die!" he told her, pulling the trousers from his damp head.

"I couldn't—" she began, her voice catching in her throat as tears began to well in her eyes.

An involuntary moan crept from his throat and he fell back against his elbow. "You should have left me to die, goddamit. Look at me—I'm a fucking invalid."

He didn't have the strength to dress and there was a moment's pause where he lay naked as the day he was born save the metal cuffs and belt. Hermione thought strongly about turning and running up the stairs and into the warmth of her home but the way his muscles convulsed—from the cold or pain, she didn't know—brought her to retrieve the joggers.

"If you try to harm me, I will kill you," she warned him, and he scoffed as she bent over him.

"Is that the best you can do, princess? I just said I _want_ to die," he told her, a crazed smile cleaving a path between swollen lips.

"I can petrify you and do this a hell of a lot more easily," she told him, and a flicker of fear crossed his face, a memory from his past life haunting him for a split second.

"I can't possibly hurt you with my hands fastened to my waist and my magic being suppressed," he told her, whimpering as she placed her hands under his arms to lift him.

Too weak to walk on his own, Malfoy more or less collapsed face first into the camp bed and Hermione stumbled under his weight. He rolled onto his back, glaring at her as a split in his forehead opened and a thin line of blood crept over his brow. "Here, it would be easier if I can get you into a sitting position," she told him, putting one hand behind his neck and the other through the crook of his arm and around his back.

She muttered a spell to close the wound once more and used her sleeve to wipe the blood away from his eyelid. It occurred to her that he could easily be pretending to be so hurt so that he could headbutt her or kick her until she passed out and he could locate the key to his shackles. When she lifted him into a seated position, he put his forehead against the crook of her neck—too weak to hold himself upright alone.

His breaths, still rattling in his chest, were coming out in shallow puffs of warm air that caused gooseflesh to rise over her. It was almost intimate how close they were as she paused in pulling the joggers up his thighs. She could smell the sweet scent of dittany and the lavender water she had used to clean all of the blood from his body. His face was covered in stubble, rough against the skin of her neck and collarbone. A whimpering noise was caught in his throat and he was still quaking dangerously. It all made him far too human and made her far too uncomfortable.

"Lift up," she instructed softly, and he was able to raise up just long enough for her to slip the joggers to his hips.

"I hate you for this," he mumbled into her shoulder before she pulled away.

"You'd rather be hanging high above London while the crows peck at your eyes and the spectators shoot demoralizing spells at your corpse?" she snapped, pulling the socks onto his feet.

"I waited _years_ for tomorrow to come and now you've deprived me of it. Theo should have never been there—he wasn't even a Death Eater! But if he had to die, I should have been right there with him," he fumed, wobbling unsteadily.

Hermione scowled up at him from where she knelt in front of his legs and he frowned pitifully. "I'm going to have to remove your restraints one at a time to get this shirt on. If you attack me, I will make you suffer."

Malfoy huffed a breath, the sound a grotesque gurgle as his eyes closed. She removed one cuff and made quick work of his arm and head, losing all sense of gentleness in her haste. He hissed at his discontent and pain as she fastened his wrist to his waist once more. She repeated the process with his other arm and as she moved to reattach the cuff to the belt, his fingers circled around her wrist. The pressure was uncomfortable as she twisted her arm to get out of his embrace. "How do you expect me to eat or piss if I can't move my arms?"

Hermione hadn't given that much thought, truthfully. She looked to where his fingers had left a red mark along her arm. With a hesitant tap of her wand, the cuffs and belt were attached with a chain long enough to allow him minimal use of his hands. She summoned the bucket from the foot of the stairs and set it along the wall for his use. Malfoy collapsed back into the bed and struggled to right himself along the length of it. He pulled the thin blanket over his body and Hermione was relieved to see that the seizing of his muscles had calmed. "Get out," he growled, his voice like footfall over gravel.

Malfoy rolled onto his side to face away from her. She stared at his lumpy shape in the dim lighting; listened to the shaky and shallow breaths he pulled into his lungs as he settled in. Her heart was slamming in her chest as she raised a ward along the bottom of the stairs, barring Malfoy from attempting to escape, or worse, kill her should he regain his strength.

Her townhouse was cozy and warm despite the bitter cold of the cellar and the December beyond. Hermione took two steps before she collapsed to the floor and sobs wracked through her. With her back against the kitchen wall, she cried tears for everything that had been lost—the sanity of her fellow man, the life of Theodore Nott, the ease of her former life, any hope for a future she had once held before she had stupidly taken on a captive. She wept for all that she had gained as well—a life of fear and mistrust, a fresh criminal record that could land her with a noose around her own neck, a wizard who would depend on her for every essential he needed to sustain life until she could figure out how to get rid of him.

It was close to an hour later before she could pry herself up and trudge toward her bathroom. One glance in the mirror spoke of the terrifying evening she had suffered. Blood was smeared across her skin – caked in her curls and brows – staining her shirt from rose to near black. _His blood._ She dry-heaved over the waste bin until a blood vessel burst in the white of her eye. The pure blood he had once been so proud of stained her in a macabre fashion and caused her to gag.

Hermione could not tear the clothing from her body quickly enough. Igniting it all in a pile on her bathroom floor, she hugged herself tightly as she wept alone. Under the scalding stream of the shower, she scrubbed her skin until it was raw and tender. Nothing she did seemed to rid her of the stench of dried blood: metallic and acrid as she swallowed it down.

Her mind refused to settle any, racing at lightning speed until night turned to dawn. The sun's rays peeked through the lace of her curtain and she knew an innocent man's life was being taken in that very moment.

o-o-o

 **6 December 2003**

Hermione tried to keep her head bowed low as she pushed through the crowds of onlookers jeering and making merry. Her hood was pulled steadfast around her face, held in place with one clawed hand, equipped with white knuckles. In trying to keep her eyes trained only on the cobblestones beneath her feet, Hermione bumped headfirst into Seamus Finnigan. They stumbled apart and he caught her before she could fall back. "All right there, Hermione?" he questioned, and she looked up to see his eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of alcohol.

"Fine," she let out a weak smile and tried to pass.

"I can't believe they took Malfoy back to Azkaban for more questioning. I mean, what more can they find out that they haven't already in the last five years?" he asked, shaking his head.

"What?" she snapped her head in the direction of the gallows and saw that there were, in fact, four bodies swaying in the cold morning breeze.

Gregory Goyle had taken Malfoy's place, though he had not had the full torturous experience the day before. No one had ever escaped the confines of the cage and it was a challenge to understand why there was not a full-scale manhunt underway. A glance around the crowd told her that they were none the wiser. Though she tried to fight it, her eyes roved over each swollen face until she landed on a head of dark, curly hair. She closed her eyes and dipped her head once more, a tearful grimace overtaking her features. "This is barbaric."

Seamus wrinkled his nose at her sentiment. "These arseholes did worse than this for sport. They're getting their comeuppance."

Hermione shook her head as her stomach flopped nastily. "I've got a lot of work to do," she told him, and he nodded, his eyes already trained on the bodies once more.

" _Theo is going to die because of you…his blood will be on your hands."_

She barely made it to the toilet before her stomach fought to empty its contents. An innocent man's life had still been taken and it was all her fault. Her mind spiraled out of control as she shivered and curled up on the floor of the loo. How could she be a War Heroine if she couldn't even save herself?

o-o-o

 _A/N: Please review! I know it's dark, but eventually, little bits of light will peek through. It's the art of a slow burn. Another grateful thank you to **PartyLines** for her amazing beta work!_


	3. Smoke Screen

**6 December 2003**

Hermione wrenched herself from the floor of the loo, wiping the stray sick from the corners of her mouth as her stomach rolled violently again. Stumbling over her own feet—heavy as lead—she made her way to the sink basin. She had been so careful to avoid the mirror in her own bathroom that morning, but there was no avoiding the wall-length monstrosities of the Ministry's sleek bathrooms.

Her eyes had dark circles around them, violet framing a long-dulled fawn as she stared at her own reflection. It was far more difficult to ignore the bright crimson of a broken blood vessel just below her lower lid, and the yellow creeping around the vermillion edges, giving off a jaundiced appearance. The color had drained completely from her cheeks, replaced instead with the ghastly grey-green pallor that accompanies a vomiting spell. With a wave of her wand toward the mop of curls atop her head, her hair plaited itself down her back.

Never before had she reacted this violently to the hangings, and she knew the change was not in the activities of the crowds that filled Wulfric Square. No—the change in her reaction came from within _her._ Theodore Nott hanged high above a jeering den of proverbial animals—innocent and without stain on his hands. Flipping off the cold water, Hermione stared at her own hands—no longer coated with Malfoy's rust-colored blood. The blood that stained her hands now was invisible to the naked eye, though _she_ could feel its greasy presence as she thought of curly-haired and vibrant Theo in Slytherin robes.

Feeling a complete and total failure, Hermione dipped her head and splashed cold water across her face, hoping for the chilled liquid to provide her with the absolution of holy water. Hot tears mingled with icy rivulets on her cheeks in sufferance of the enduring injustice that prevailed despite her interference.

The door to the lavatory opened, and Lavender Brown and Ginny Potter ambled into the room. A room that had become small, suffocatingly so. "Can you believe they brought Malfoy back in for more questioning?" Lavender asked, turning toward the mirrors to apply a coat of crimson to her lips.

Ginny was frowning as she noticed Hermione using a quick drying charm on her face. "Something wrong, Hermione?" she questioned, ignoring Lavender's inquiries.

Hermione had not held a genuine conversation with Ginny in nearly three years. The downfall of her relationship with George, coupled with her reluctance to blindly follow Harry's vicious lead had caused her friendships to sour, and Ginny took her hesitance and thirst for independence as the highest form of betrayal. As she stared at the fiery witch's reflection, her stomach rumbling uncomfortably, her head moved side-to-side, though she couldn't recall a voluntary drive to do so. "No. I'm fine. I'm just not supportive of this grotesque behavior, and you know that."

Lavender fluffed her hair around her head, carefree and relaxed—as though there weren't four fresh bodies hanging a hundred meters from where they stood. Her newly painted lips curved down into a frown as Ginny crossed her arms, leaning her hip against the sink basin beside Hermione's. "And what would you propose we do, Granger? Give them the Kiss and call it even? These _savages_ kidnapped, tortured, maimed, and killed people. They killed my brother—you know, the man who looked identical to the one you used to fuck before your pride and snootiness got in the way?"

A scene flashed behind Hermione's eyelids, an animalistic urge to smack Ginny clean across her face causing her fists to clench at her sides. "Your _brother_ used to get pissed every night and took his twin's death out on me. _With his fists._ "

Ginny's eye flashed to Hermione's balled hands and she raised a single eyebrow. "Are you certain he was the offender?"

Lavender could sense the growing tension, and though it would have likely given her great joy to watch Hermione engage Ginny in a duel and her subsequent firing from the Ministry, she pulled Ginny away. "Come on, Gin. We've got a meeting in an hour."

The witch stared at Hermione for a moment longer, her cobalt eyes penetrating Hermione's and raising the hackles along Hermione's neck and arms. Finally, with a forceful tug on Lavender's part, she turned to leave. "To answer your question, Lav, no. I don't believe for one moment that they brought Malfoy in for more questioning. And neither does Harry."

Hermione's heart began to beat a rapid tattoo as she watched their backs retreat, the door swinging closed behind them. If Harry was already suspecting that the Ministry's cover-up was bogus, it wouldn't be long before he was attempting to solve Draco's disappearance. Her former friend would have no reason to suspect her. Regardless of their tentative acquaintance, Harry would be certain that Hermione would never aid a Malfoy, no matter the circumstances.

Except, of course, that she _had_ saved him. Harry knew very little of the history between them, and Hermione envied his ignorance as she lumbered heavily through the door and toward the lifts, fighting against the barrage of swooping memories that she'd long ago buried. They had no place in her new life, and she tried desperately to shove them back into the darkest cavities of her mind.

The lift was blissfully empty when she stepped in, with most of the staff still outside, reveling in their day's work. With a jerking start that did nothing for her rolling belly, it began to fall slowly toward the ninth floor. It lurched at the same glacial pace that she rued each morning, yet on this day, the sluggish operation served to give her a few moments to clear her mind before she set to work.

It rattled and shook on the fourth floor, screeching to a halt. She groaned as Ron Weasley stepped onto the lift. Unlike his sibling, Ron had taken to completely ignoring her existence—a notion that left her more dejected than if he had ranted and raved at her.

Ron had never been the silent type—not to her. Sure, he and Harry had engaged in petty fights in their teenaged years, but Ron was never one to hold long term grudges against his close friends. She supposed it hurt her to the core even more forcefully because she had been so certain that he would have sided with her. His temper had been feisty, but his soul had been gentle as the Jack Russell Terrier his Patronus mimicked. Hermione had held so much hope that he would have remained innocent and unaffected by Harry's insane ramblings after the War.

George's mindset in the wake of his twin's death had weighed heavily on the youngest Weasley son. The longer he spent in his presence, listening to the heartbreak and sobs of a man who was left one half of a whole forevermore, the more bloodthirsty Ron had become. His sweet persona hardened over time and he led the crusades at Harry's right hand.

Hermione had lain awake, wrapped in George's arms, so many nights as he recounted heroic and admirable arrests and vigilante killings his brother had enacted in revenge. She and George had called it quits—or rather, _she_ had left him passed out on the floor in the flat he had destroyed in a drunken stupor—two and a half years prior. Still, she could hear his voice echoing in her mind as she stared at the back of Ron's head. " _My brother is following through and seeking the punishments these bastards should have gotten after the first War. Fred would still be alive if the fucking Ministry had done its job twenty years ago!"_

Staring at Ron's back, she took in the tense set of his shoulders. He was raking a hand over his face, sighing loudly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. His robes were nowhere to be found and he was clad only in a burgundy jumper and trousers. With his sleeves rolled back, his forearms were exposed, and the jagged, twisted scars braided into his pale flesh seemed to leap from his skin. They were remnants of an event that would've felt like five lifetimes ago, had it not been so permanently seared into Hermione's brain. She fixated on the swirling marks—the stark white weaving over peppered creaminess.

"Why do you smell like vomit?" he questioned, his strained voice breaking the silence.

Hermione lifted her shirt toward her nose, wondering where the smell could be emanating from. "I had a moment."

With more venom than was necessary, he spat, "You might want to get that cleaned up before you head into the Love Chamber. Merlin knows what your partner will say."

He had never agreed with her decision to work for the Department of Mysteries—especially after the memories that had been forced upon them and the war that followed. Her working in the highly confidential Love Chamber created an undeniable cleft—one of many—between them. She cast her eyes downward, gnawing at her bottom lip as she fought to ignore his biting words. "Ron, you know it isn't like that. I don't work in _that_ division."

"You always were uptight," he muttered, stepping sideways as the lift stuttered to a stop.

Before she could argue the absurdity that he should insult her, both for a baseless accusation that she slept with coworkers and then in the same breath for the idea that she was too prudish to do such a thing, the floor began to quake and the lift's gate began to close. She slipped out and onto the ninth floor in the nick of time, the gate catching her robe so that she had to tug it free.

Ron was standing in the lift, his arms crossed as he stared at her through the diamond-shaped cutouts. Though he was attempting to look disgusted, she could see that the more prevalent emotion was anger and apprehension. He knew Malfoy had not been taken to Azkaban—she could see it in the tight line of his lips and the wrinkle between his brow. He was preparing to be debriefed on the situation and then the veritable witch hunt would begin. Hermione felt her legs tremble beneath her, her hands shaking as she clutched her bag closer to herself.

The lift jolted and she held Ron's gaze as he rose, until he was out of eyesight and then she stared at the black hole for a long moment after. Malfoy was resting—with any luck _peacefully_ —in her cellar and, in the fifteen minutes she had been at work, she had come face-to-face with the wife of one Auror and his equally high-ranking partner. The idea of saving the wizard seemed even more far-fetched and irrational now as she swallowed down guilt and panicked dismay.

Willing her body to right itself long enough to carry her to her private office, she began walking stiffly toward the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries. Her mind raced with a million thoughts until she found herself standing in a circular room, doors surrounding her. Every day for nearly four years, this had been her second home, and yet she faltered as she took three steps to the left, four steps back and two to the right. Lifting her wand, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The room would not open if she had a battle raging within. Lifting her face toward the ceiling, the pale blue lighting shined behind her lids as she counted backward from one hundred. Her heart was still racing violently at the idea of being caught with her captive, but she managed to slow it somewhere around fifty-seven. Opening her eyes, she lifted her wand and began the incantation to open the door. " _Solum amoris veri basio."_

From the end of her wand, two ghostly white doves sprung forth, fluttering their wings in a plume of hazy condensation that kissed her skin and quenched thirsts deep within her. The birds settled in front of the door immediately to her right and began tapping an intricate design, each tap of their beaks leaving a shining white pearl of magic. The twittering of their love song was sweet as they worked, a tale as old as time itself. After a few moments, a delicate Celtic love knot showed brightly. Unique to Hermione alone, it was a stark contrast to the dim blues and harsh black voids of the room around them.

Hermione lifted her hand and placed it directly in the middle of the knot, her palm resting over the center twist as she repeated her incantation. When she dropped her hand, the room around her began to spin violently and she closed her eyes to the kaleidoscopic swirling, lest her already nauseated stomach take that sight as a sign to empty once more. She felt the floor slam to a halt; heard the chinking of metal cogs clinking into place beneath her shoes. Reopening her eyes, she looked and the door immediately to her left clicked open and a plume of sensual violet smoke snaked from within, curling around her form and licking at her neck.

Once fascinated by the unusual way of entering and exiting the Love Chamber in the Department of Mysteries, she was growing weary of the room's antics as she stepped within. The two doves flew before her, circling around a massive fountain in the center of the room. A life-sized stone sculpture of Aphrodite herself stood in the fountain, lifting a stone bucket filled with pearly white potion up and dousing herself in it. She giggled as the liquid ran over her in iridescent rivulets and Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed.

The entire room reeked of sea spray and Earl Grey tea with a smoky undertone she couldn't quite place—a far cry from the Amortentia she had brewed at seventeen. The sheer density of the scent that clung in the air around her was enough to make her feel heady as she pushed back toward her office door. She heard giggles and the sounds of lovemaking coming from the "Testing" room to her right—the very place Ron had accused her of indulging only a few minutes before. To her left were a series of doors. Behind each one was an Unspeakable working alone to analyze the effects of the love potion and produce varying projects for the department.

Hermione entered her office—a clinically sterile room of chilling white and cold metal furniture. Her legs wobbled dangerously and she sat swiftly to avoid collapsing. As she recounted her morning thus far, two redheaded Weasley faces swam behind her lids. She pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to rid her brain of them, but they refused to yield. _They know. They know he escaped and it is only a matter of time before they find him…and me._ She took another steadying breath and opened her eyes.

Fishing a long chain from around her neck, she lifted the small brass key that dangled from the end to her desk drawer. Feeling the magic from the key in close proximity, the drawer grew a second lock body. She turned the key thrice anti-clockwise and twice clockwise until she heard the satisfying click of the secret compartment opening. From within, she retrieved a small black journal with silver edges.

Though she was utterly and completely alone, Hermione still glanced around her, paranoia burning in her chest. She typically studied the manifestation of love into something more gruesome; more sinister. While she was required to report her findings to her superiors, she kept this small journal private. It was filled to the brim with notes she had taken over the years with regards to a certain power couple in the wizarding world. A couple who, in no time flat, would be tying a noose around her neck in Wulfric Square.

Opening the journal to her last entry, she ran her fingers over the words, ' _The mental suffering and anguish of Horcrux magic impressed upon their souls has had lasting effects in both individuals.'_ Thinking of the malicious way her former best friend and his new wife went about justice, Hermione dropped her face into her hand and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and middle finger. Her side project, for as long as she had held a position within the Department of Mysteries, had been to study the effects of Dark Magic on Harry and Ginny—more specifically, how the possession they had both suffered at the hands of Voldemort had shaped the obsessive and, at times, maniacal way they loved one another.

Calling either of them—or their obviously fierce support and love for one another— into question was an extremely dangerous undertaking in the current state of the wizarding world. It frustrated Hermione to no end that she had yet to solve the issue, because once she deciphered the underlying mystery of the Dark Magic's hold on the pair, she would be one step closer to curbing the dangerous bloodlust they both possessed: a thirst for killing that was spurned by the Darkness that lingered within them both.

o-o-o

Hermione left the Department of Mysteries in a daze a few hours later. Her concentration had been shoddy at best throughout the work day. Passing this weeks' test subjects—Scarlet and Edgar—as they dipped their hands into the fountain of Amortentia once more, she drew her lip between her teeth. They were lost in one another, having partaken in the potion over the last several days. Gazing into one another's eyes and kissing passionately, not seeing Hermione as she passed, Edgar began to suckle at Scarlet's neck.

Along the opposite wall, a glass window allowed two Unspeakables to watch the interactions of the lovesick couple. They were scribbling furiously, and she averted her eyes from everyone as she left the Chamber. Even as she strode down the long corridor to the lift, her heels clicking across the onyx marble, she could hear the whispering coming from small clusters of witches and wizards in heated and adamant chats. "… _they found new evidence against him…when they finally get that noose around his neck, they'll have to revive him and kill him again to make it even."_

" _Do you believe this rubbish they're telling us? Where is Rita Skeeter when you need her?"_

" _They'll find him. Had to be an inside job."_

Hermione's insides twisted as she picked up her pace, nearly sprinting toward the lifts now. It felt as though the walls were closing in on either side of her, the ceiling and floor compressing all of the air around her into a sweltering and suffocating mass. It felt as though dozens of pairs of eyes were following her. _They know._ She was certain of this. They _all_ knew. The Aurors were going to arrest her; hang her alongside Malfoy—for whom she had stupidly risked her life. This had all been for naught.

Hermione rode the lift, sandwiched between Susan Bones and an elderly wizard that smelled faintly of swiss cheese and cat urine. Memos flew in and out of the lift each time they passed an opening and Malfoy's mugshot sneered down at her from all angles. She snatched the closest one out of the air and stuffed in into the pocket of her robes, struggling against the paper as it fought to find its rightful owner.

In the Square, Harry himself was watching as the four corpses as they were lowered. Each was riddled with holes where the crows had pecked and prodded during the course of the day. There was a small crowd around him, the hushed whispers of conversation rising in a din of incoherent noise. He stood alone, his hands on his hips and his lips pursed as Gregory Goyle was lowered before him. "Should've been Draco Malfoy," a voice from somewhere to Harry's left said.

Katie Bell was watching as well, a disgusted curl in her lip as she lifted her hood up around her face. Hermione watched as Harry whirled around and wrapped an arm around Katie. "He will get his time. Soon enough—once the Ministry has finished with him."

"You're an _Auror_ , Harry. Do you really believe that they took him back for questioning?" Katie asked, staring down at Goyle's lifeless shell.

Hermione moved closer, trying to hear Harry's response even as she weaved her way toward the far side of the Square. "Are you questioning the Minister? The Department of Magical Law Enforcement?" he hissed, and Hermione saw his hand tighten around his wand as she passed.

"No, no. Of course not. I just—I was really hoping he would get his just desserts," Katie replied, her voice cracking emotionally behind Hermione. "You know. After what he did to me."

Hermione reached the alley that lead out into London proper, every inch of her body feeling as though she were burning alive. Her nerves sang, vibrating wildly within her as she fought to draw in a breath. Her lungs felt near to combusting. All around her, she could feel the gaze of hundreds of Londoners—Christmas shoppers and commuters alike—tearing into her like the steady stream of a machine gun. _They know._

Panic overtook her and she diverted from the path toward the town market, instead dipping in an alley between two rows of townhomes. Spinning on the spot, she apparated back to her own home, collapsing on her kitchen floor.

Gulping at air like a fish out of water, she sat against the door leading down to the cellar. Every breath felt like she was sucking in a bouquet of flames, her body convulsing and shaking with paranoid fear. She was a fool to save Malfoy—the Ministry and the DMLE knew he wasn't in the care of the guards of Azkaban. The top ranking Aurors would begin a covert hunt for the Death Eater—they likely already had.

Her head thumped back against the wood of the door and she could hear a frightful moaning noise coming from within the cellar. Closing her eyes, Hermione willed her problems to disappear. She would awaken and Draco would be in a pine box in the prison cemetery where he belonged. Not occupying a makeshift bed in her food cellar, taking up residence in her mind and calcifying her heart as it was eaten up with guilt.

Another hefty wail filtered up the stairs and she wiped at the tears on her cheeks. There would be no waking from this nightmare. There was no one to blame but herself.

o-o-o

 _A/N: Beta love (lots of it) belongs to_ _ **PartyLines**_ — _an absolute saint. Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed! Please share your thoughts!_


	4. Retribution

**6 December 2003**

The pain radiating through his entire body was far more spectacular than anything else Draco had ever felt in his life. The Cruciatus had been quick, sharp stabs of agony. What he felt now was deep-seated anguish that began in the osteons of his bone marrow and weaved and seeped through his bloodstream right out to the surface of his skin. There wasn't a bit of him that wasn't hurting. The cool draft continuously whispered through his hair, shooting shards of fire into his scalp with each movement.

There was a small hopper window on the far side of the room, closed up tight, and grimy with dust and years of nonuse. Sunlight had illuminated the yellowed glass earlier and he could see the light beyond growing violet as the day wore on. Footsteps creaked across the floor above him as Granger paced around, banging pots and pans in her kitchen.

The door to the cellar finally scraped open, sending a shaft of warm yellow light down the stairs. Turning his head slightly, causing a stab so sharp that his teeth ached, he watched as Granger walked down the stairs. Hesitance was readily discernible as she crept down, one stair at a time, a tray levitating next to her.

"Malfoy?" she uttered, her voice a scratchy whisper.

He hadn't enough energy or will to respond just yet, and instead just grunted his acknowledgment. Granger waved her wand toward the ceiling light and the room was filled with a soft glow that nearly blinded him, his head giving a painful throb. Even though his eyes were still swollen and distended, he could see clearly enough to tell that she had been crying—her face was red and puffy.

Mustering every ounce of consciousness he possessed, Draco rasped, "What's the matter, Little Dove? Regret saving me now?"

At the sound of his pet name, Granger's eyes flashed to his before raking over his entire face, her lips turning down into a deep-set frown. Recollection colored her features for a brief moment before she looked away, occupying her hands with the contents on the levitating tray. "Yes," she answered after a long moment, setting the tray on the bed next to his legs.

Warm steam rose from the bowl, breaking through the chill in the cellar with a plume of condensation. His stomach lurched at the smell of broth, hunger pangs all too familiar to him after years of substandard care in Azkaban. Saliva pooled at the back of his throat. "I brought you something to put in your stomach. I really need to check your wounds for infection, as well," Granger told him, stirring the broth with a spoon.

Draco let out a grunt and she sat on the edge of the bed. Her body gave off a heat that momentarily blocked cool air as she leaned over him. Her hand was searing when she placed it behind his neck to assist him to sit upright. The torturous aches intensified, causing a guttural moan to bubble up in his chest. Granger shushed him in a quieted tone, her hand heavy along the nape of his neck.

He placed his cheek in the crook of her neck, closing his eyes as he inhaled her clean scent—something akin to Lily-of-the-Valley. The last time he had been this close to her, it had been a harsh contrast to their positioning now. Granger had been nearly paralyzed with fear and he had been fast-acting for the same reason.

That night had haunted Draco far more often and significantly more harshly than any other he had ever survived.

o-o-o

 **18 July 1997**

Draco stood deathly still on the pavement of a nondescript road running through the center of an affluent Muggle neighborhood. The night air was still and calm around him, the light breeze playing at his hair. The others were Apparating in nearby with a swish of their cloaks and a wisp of silvery smoke trailing after them. The air smelled acrid; tasted acidic on the tip of his tongue.

"Come on, boy," a voice sounded beside him, rough like footsteps over gravel.

In the light of the street lamps, pewter masks shined beneath tattered robes of onyx, creating ethereal reapers in the darkness. There were no cracks to disturb the peace as the others appeared, but he could feel the ranks closing in behind him, their bodies heavy in the warm night.

Yaxley put a hand around Draco's upper arm and pulled him harshly toward the first house. It registered in the back of his mind that his aunt was entirely too quiet—an alarming difference to her usual insane cackling. "Granger's been spotted around here," the elder man muttered gruffly, lifting his head as though sniffing for her scent on the breeze—a preposterous thought in the absence of their resident hell hound, Greyback.

The lump in Draco's throat nearly suffocated him as he turned his eyes infinitesimally toward a house at the bend of the cul-de-sac. The porch light was glowing a warm yellow in the night and he wished he'd had enough forethought to extinguish it before. "I doubt Granger would be stupid enough to stay in her family home, knowing the Dark Lord is rising after Dumbledore's death."

"You'd do well not to question direct orders," Goyle, Sr. growled from his left, pushing past his shoulder forcefully.

"She's sly—leaving her trace at every home on the street," Bellatrix commented, lifting her hand and feeling ripples of magic in the air around her. "Use any means necessary to achieve the desired end."

The group of a dozen split off, two to a house. Quietly, covertly, they snuck and slithered their way into the homes of unsuspecting Muggles. Their intentions sickened Draco, their deeds within turning houses into crypts. Screams pierced the still night and he clenched his eyes and swallowed down hot bile as he strode alongside Yaxley toward 134 Headley Court.

As they approached, Draco retrieved a vial from within the pocket of his robes, uncorking it between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He approached the end of the drive, a single drop of blood cascading from the glass and onto the cement beneath his feet. As they stalked across the grass, the magic around him gave way far too easily for his liking. If Yaxley noticed the sudden waves of dissipating magic, he said nothing.

The gardens were neat, trimmed in a tidy manner. The door was painted a vibrant shade of scarlet—a nod to Granger's Gryffindor heritage if he had ever seen one, though he thought his counterparts too ignorant to take note of such a detail. Only one automobile was parked in front—the other would be with the Granger parents at a dental convention in Leicester. "I'm going to bury my cock so far up her tightly wound ass, she'll taste me for days," Yaxley commented next to him, his dark eyes gleaming by light of the porch lantern and his breath reeking of alcohol.

Draco grit his teeth, lest he speak up and hex his superior. Granger would be _his_. He had spent years watching her excel at everything, usurping him at every fucking turn. That bitch needed to be knocked off her pedestal and he had spent weeks preparing for this night. Granger was _his_.

His wand poised, ready to vanish the portrait of the Granger family that hung in their foyer, he nodded. Yaxley's lips stretched back over rotten yellow teeth in a devious smile as he worked to unlock the door. The click of the lock made Draco's stomach flop in anticipation as he pushed the door open, quickly muttering a vanishing spell into the dark house.

"I'll search down here—" the Death Eater began, before Draco hit him with a stunning spell.

The stocky man fell back with a crash, and Draco stepped over him swiftly. Above him, the floorboards creaked as Granger rose from her bed. He raised his wand into a defensive dueling position as he took the stairs two at a time. Her bedroom door brushed open as Draco rounded the corner. He tucked back into the shadows, pulling his hood tight around his head of white blond hair and tucking his face downward. Granger took a single step out of her room, her wand at the ready, and he struck.

Before she could let out the shriek filling her lungs, he clapped a hand over her mouth and held her from behind. She kicked and thrashed in his grasp as he dragged her back into her room. "Granger, stop it!"

She either did not hear his command or did not care as she continued her assault on him. Draco easily overpowered her and she fought to maintain a hold on her wand. Once in her room, he kicked her door closed behind him. "If you don't stop fighting, I will kill you," he warned half-heartedly, pressing his forearm against her windpipe.

Unable to breath in his tight hold, she tried desperately to grab at anything she could reach and he narrowly dodged her fisting his manhood in her claw. Draco tossed her onto the bed, his temper rising at the fight she was putting up. She flipped over quickly, all the while screeching nonsensical words. Attempting to kick Draco as he approached, she flailed and fought for her life—a scene that would later haunt his every waking thought.

He grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her on the bed toward him, sliding her over her mussed blankets. Her fists swung out and her fingers dug at the eyeholes of his mask. Draco struggled to gain the upper hand, until finally he was able to press his knee forcefully into her chest, her hands pinned tightly beside her shoulders.

His breath was falling in labored pants over her. "You coward!" Granger wailed, and tears were streaming over her face.

Day after day, he had watched her from afar—how she interacted with her parents; the way she read on the balcony overlooking her back garden, wrapped tightly in blankets no matter what the temperature; how restless she grew at night and the way she paced for hours at a time; the curve of her frown when she received an owl. Looking down at her now—an unsettling vulnerability shining in her eyes; one so uncharacteristic of Hermione Granger—he couldn't bring himself to follow through with his plans.

All that time watching, dreaming of ways he could shut her fucking swotty little mouth up, and he couldn't bring himself to follow through. _Fucking coward._

Draco's arms were covered in scratches from their struggle, his legs soon to be covered in bruises. "Granger, you need to listen to me, or they will fucking kill you."

Recognition finally flitted across her face and her brow furrowed, a spot on her forehead bleeding. "Malfoy?" The sound was somewhere between surprise and choking.

While tearing the mask away from his face, Draco placed his other knee over her arm, pinning her with his entire weight over her body. "Listen to me—the Dark Lord has sent us to look for you. Corbin Yaxley is stunned downstairs, but it's only a matter of time before the others come looking here."

"What—" her breathing was ragged under his weight and he shifted experimentally. When she didn't kick him, he eased back, straddling her and leaning back on his haunches. "What do you want?"

Draco couldn't recall a single time when Granger had ever looked so wildly frightened and it unsettled him more than any other task he had undertaken in the last three months. "Information on Potter's whereabouts."

Her face hardened into a mask of defiance. "I'd rather die than tell you."

One of his more prominent fantasies—one egged on by his Aunt's insistence that they use _any method to achieve their end—_ threatened to surface. So many nights he had pondered the many ways he could coerce information from her, break her down; _hurt_ her. Faced with the very real possibility to do just that, he found that his stomach roiled instead. All of the heady ideals of fucking her into submission had leaked away, and he was left only with a self-loathing that was thus far unparalleled.

"That may very well become a reality tonight," he warned, listening as the door downstairs creaked.

Bellatrix's cackling echoed throughout the house. "What is this? The oaf got so pissed he passed out!"

Granger's eyes widened and Draco pulled her from the bed and pushed her to her knees on the floor before him. Using both hands, he scooped her hair into his fist and twisted it around, trying to mask her telltale curls as best as he could in his grip. She hissed in pain and looked up at him. Draco put a finger to his lips, silencing her as his aunt's footsteps rang clear as a bell, each one causing a clattering stuttering of his heart.

"Oh, Draco! I know you're up here!" her voice paused right outside of the door. "Oh—you have company!"

Fisting her hair, he pressed her face into his lower belly, mimicking a vulgar display as best as he could, hoping to fool the wicked witch. It was a skewed production of one of his most prominent delusions, but he took no pleasure in even feigning such an act. Granger's hands clawed around his thighs as he kicked her discarded wand under the bed swiftly. "I'll—be—right there," he told her, forcing his voice to become huskier, his breathing heavier in a false bravado.

"You men! So quick to shove your prick's down a Muggle cunt's throat," she muttered, clucking her tongue impatiently. "If you're anything like your father, you'll make it quick."

Ignoring the jab at his father, Draco ground his teeth as he listened to her retreating footsteps. The front door opened and swung shut, the sound as loud as it would have been had they been in the foyer. The blood was swirling behind his eardrums, his hand shaking around his wand. He lifted Granger up in one motion, dropping her to the mattress once more. "Do you know how close you just came to dying? How close we both came to being killed by my psychotic aunt?" he demanded, grabbing her chin in his hand.

Granger's energy was renewed with a vengeance as she began to writhe and thrash beneath him once more. Growing weary of her antics, he wrapped his hand around her throat, pressing the sides forcefully. Her hands smacked and tore at the sleeves of his robe. "You fucking bitch. I'm trying to warn you—you need to get the fuck out of here. You and your stupid fucking friends. If you want to win this—you need to leave, and do it quick. The Dark Lord is on the hunt. It wasn't nearly hard enough for me to get in here tonight!"

Her face was a fierce shade of puce when he finally eased up on her throat. Her gasps sounded like death rattles as she fought to draw in breath after ragged breath. Her hands went to her throat, attempting to massage away the pain. "How?"

"I went to visit your disgusting muggle father. Let him clean my teeth with his barbaric muggle tools. A bit of wandless magic and a tool slipped. Drew enough of his blood to get past the wards," he confessed, his gaze hard as she stared up at him.

The color was draining from her face, though a blood vessel in her eye had burst in their tussle "You'll have to kill me."

Draco's hand clenched into a tight ball next to her head as he leaned over her. "I don't want to know where Potter is. I want you to run, you ignorant witch."

Outside her window, he could hear the bored voice of Bellatrix as she told the others of his dalliance. Draco looked down at Granger, clad only in a thin sleeping gown. The fabric had bunched around her hips, exposing sensible knickers of white cotton. The others were stumbling into the house, laughing at the carelessness of Yaxley as they pushed into the belly of the home.

"Let's have a go with the muggle bitch, then," Goyle growled as they rounded the staircase below and a sordid blast sounded, furniture and balustrades busting.

Draco glanced down at her, glanced down at her, feeling unable to breathe; unable to swallow at all. "You look so fucking innocent. A fucking pure Little Dove amidst a murder of fucking crows," he hissed through clenched teeth. "A virgin, no doubt. They'll kill you before they can even get you to the Dark Lord."

Tears were streaming from her eyes as she whispered pleas. "Please, don't let them."

The way she looked at him, and the way her crippling fear was so obviously replaced with her potent pleading, compelled him to give in. That scene would forever consume him. Having come to her home with the intent to harm her, the drive to save her life was now all-encompassing. _Fucking Granger._ Only she could make him question everything he had ever wanted. "They'll leave if they think I've claimed you."

Draco whispered every glamor charm he could remember from the witches in the Slytherin dungeons, turning Granger's hair from curly chestnut to pin straight. It took some of the burden from his heart as he watched her large, inquisitive eyes turn from brown to blue. Nestled between her legs, he draped his cloak around them, hiding any connection their bodies may have had. His hands slid down her thighs, ignoring the way she twitched under his touch as he held them upright by his hips.

Behind him, he heard gruff voices. "The fucking Malfoy brat got to her first. Lestrange was telling the truth!" Goyle spat.

"Of course I was, you pathetic excuse of a wizard," Bella's voice sounded even further back.

Draco dipped his head and pulled Granger's toward him, pressing her face to his cheek. "Don't say a fucking word," he hissed venomously, before he placed a loud, wet kiss along the column of her throat.

"Leave him be—his first muggle whore," his aunt drawled, clearly bored with the crass display.

Granger's chest heaved as though she were about to speak, and Draco snaked his hand from her cheek and pressed it firmly over her mouth preventatively. "Silence," he said, his breath hot against her neck.

He could taste her scent—clean and feminine—on his lips as he laved at her bare skin. "I'll be done in a fucking minute," he called to those behind him, putting on his best annoyed countenance. "Some fucking privacy here."

"Make sure she remembers nothing when you're done playing with her," Bella reminded him, prodding the other voyeurs away from Granger's bedroom.

They listened, Draco's mouth still pressed against the bare skin of her neck, as the din of voices died down and the air both inside and outside of her home stilled once more. When it was evident that the only sound was the ticking of her clock along the wall, he moved away from her. Still straddling her, his hands shook as he lowered one to swipe hair away from where it curtained her face.

The look Granger had given him in that moment was one Draco had never been able to shake. At night, he would lie awake in his bed, wondering about the whereabouts of the elusive Golden Trio. Her face, so full of loathing and fear, swam endlessly in the pools of his mind.

Never before had Draco hated himself so completely, so powerfully. He may not have taken her innocence, but she would never hold a normal relationship. Every experience she would have in her life would come back to this singular moment, every touch of a lover bringing her heartache and despair.

Before he could do anything stupid, Draco backed off and replaced his mask, leaving Granger to sob on her bed. He stood in her doorway and watched as she curled herself into a tight ball. "Win this fucking war, Granger," he growled, looking away from her as shame radiated through his entire being. "It's your only hope at survival."

o-o-o

 _A/N: This revel scene was in my head for nearly a year. It fits with the theme of this story—Dramione helping each other over time, little by little. I know it's a dark scene, but I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for the love already given to this story! Please review!_

 _And special thanks and love to_ _ **PartyLines**_ _, who works selflessly to keep me from writing too many fragments, splices, and redundancies. Forever grateful!_


	5. Begrudged

**A/N: WARNING:** You need to go back and reread the updated trigger warning paragraph at the beginning of this story before you go a word further. This story has morphed into something entirely different than I had originally intended, and you need to be aware of some changes. I don't want you invested and then hating me because I didn't warn you. So I'm warning you.

 **7 December 2003**

Draco didn't care to show vulnerability—especially not to his enemies. And Hermione Granger had always been a nemesis, from the first day he had seen her in King's Cross, bucktoothed and bushy-haired. Their schoolyard rivalry had morphed with the rise of the Dark Lord into a true, deep-seated loathing of one another, with orders from both sides to never hesitate in killing the other in a duel.

And here, she had come to save him from his accepted fate, like some fucking _saint_. Granger's kindness was almost as legendary as her ruthlessness on the battlefield, but he found it a foreign concept that it should extend to him. That night, so long ago in muggle London, had done nothing to solidify her trust in him—if anything, she had appeared to trust him even less when she had been snatched and paraded into the Manor the following spring. She knew _nothing_ of his conspirations that Easter—the panicked meeting that saved her life for the second time.

Draco knew he was now Public Enemy Number One. His photo was surely posted to every store-front window, all over the long-corrupted _Daily Prophet_. Aurors were likely searching every wizarding home in all of England, trying to catch a trace of his long-dormant magic anywhere they could find it. Fucking Granger had put herself into immeasurable danger—and for what? To save his sorry arse? He _wanted_ to die, _begged_ for Death's icy fingers to clench his heart in its grasp.

During the war, everything had spiraled so far out of control that Draco didn't even recognize himself any longer. Long gone was the scared boy, lowering his wand in the face of Albus Dumbledore. And if there was one thing Draco Malfoy had done right, it was that he had learned from that mistake. He had tried to make it right, to warn Granger. And still, he had been labeled as the monster, chucked into Azkaban's dungeons, her feeble protests in the courtroom rattling forevermore in his brain.

Draco was so far gone into the harrowing world of the Devil's Arithmetic—institutionalized additions and substitution—that he saw no brightness in his future. The war and his stint in Azkaban had irreparably damaged him. Left to be a useless sod, feeding off of the kindness of his one-time foe.

He had once reigned supreme in a world of emerald, cobalt, ruby and gold. If he thought on it long enough, he could almost recall the lush green of the valleys and ravines alongside Hogwarts as he flew a broom up higher than the tallest turret, the inviting blue of a clear sky before a Quidditch game. Those memories slipped a little more each day; the memories of the warm fires of the Great Hall, or the whimsical dancing of the Giant Squid as it swam past the dungeon windows were growing hazier with the passing time.

All of these colorful, cheerful memories were slowly replaced, one at a time. Decay accompanied by the smell of rotting flesh. Black cloaks and an inky sky above, the sound of frightened screaming. Cold, damp stones encasing him from every side, dim light filtering through a miniscule slat of a window. A grey, drab world where the sun never seemed to shine as bright as it once had.

There wasn't a single day since the Battle of Hogwarts that Draco Malfoy didn't wish for the sweet caress of Death. He yearned for the empty, black void of nothingness as he fell beyond the veil. Every attempt he'd made so far to bring this to reality had failed. Countless others led to the gallows, yet his own life continued on, mocking him cruelly.

He sat on the camp bed that Granger had conjured for him, shivering as a fever raged within him. She had spent the evening before, tending his wounds, spooning broth into his mouth. Anger welled within him, causing him to shake. He shouldn't be here—didn't deserve her humility. He knew she was doing this out of guilt, obligation, repayment for his one selfless act. His singular, fucked up and traumatizing moment of pragmatic altruism.

Her pity disgusted him more than anything.

o-o-o

Malfoy was laying on the bed on his side, facing the stone wall. He ran a finger over his wrists where his cuffs cut lacerations into his flesh. "Just leave the tray and go," he barked upon hearing her enter.

Hermione knew he was embarrassed and ashamed of how vulnerable he had been the night before, how his weakness weighed on his psyche. She ignored his biting tone and stepped further into the room. "I brought you some porridge…it's not much, but it tastes okay."

Malfoy looked over his shoulder at her and she heard a deep rumbling in his chest like a growl. As she set the tray near his feet, she wondered if he would attempt to kick her now that he was slowly regaining his strength. By some small measure of trust, he didn't. Instead, he remained still as the cadaver he had narrowly avoided becoming and stared at the grey stone wall. Hermione perched on the edge of his bed carefully. "Come on, then. Just a few bites."

"Why the fuck couldn't you just let me die?" he asked, his voice gruff and demanding.

"I've told you, you were innocent and I knew it. I couldn't let you hang."

"Theo—"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I didn't know about Theo," she cut through whatever tirade he was about to begin, "but had I known, I would have tried to save you both somehow."

Malfoy sat up quickly, his jerky movements setting alarms off in Hermione's mind. Her wand was drawn in a split second, pointing right between his eyes. His hand grasped the end of it and Hermione's breath hitched as her mouth opened to spit a hex in his direction. His next words caught her by surprise, her jaw clamping shut. "I am prepared to die," he lowered her wand toward his chest. "It would be a mercy killing. Just _do it_."

Hermione lowered her wand and looked at him, _seeing_ him for the first time. He was sitting in the center of the bed, blankets draped around his waist and clad in the Manchester United t-shirt, the chains clinking heavily around him as he crossed his arms over his chest. He was young, but the life he'd been forced into had begun to take its toll, appearing much older than twenty-three. Wrinkles took root at the corner of each eye and two deep, parenthetical grooves ran along either side of his mouth. His hair was blond but caked with dried blood she'd missed or he'd shed after her departure. He had long scars all over him, some faded to white, some violet and raised, some fiery red and refusing to close up without the aid of dittany.

"No," Hermione told him, feeling her heartstrings tug as she wondered what he'd been forced into, whether he believed any of it or was simply a pawn, of the torture he had faced at the hands of the guards in Azkaban.

"Excuse me?" he hissed, narrowing his eyes into hardened slits. "I am telling you to fucking kill me. You've got permission. You can rest easy tonight knowing that the life you took today was a merciful release for the deceased."

"No," she murmured again, shaking her head adamantly. "I won't do it."

"And why the fuck not? Do you really believe that my life is worth all of this trouble? The Ministry will come looking for me—they'll hang us both!"

Hermione didn't truthfully know how to answer his demands. She had given up true hope long ago and was simply fighting through the motions because giving up altogether was far too complacent. Malfoy sat back against the wall gingerly. "What the fuck will you do then?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione inquired, displeased that he was voicing every worry that had plagued her since she landed atop him on the cellar floor.

"They will hunt me down, bring me to slaughter. And you are the reason why I am not being buried as we speak," he replied with a shrug. "They will arrest you. Your dear friend Potter will make an example out of you."

"We'll run. I have connections in other countries," she told him, though who she was trying to convince, she was unsure.

The look on Malfoy's face was angry, every feature showing disdain at her naivety. "We don't even _know_ each other. This is some sick attempt at clearing your conscience because, once-upon-a-time, I showed a moment of weakness and saved you from the wolves. In the most vile and fucked up of ways, I might add."

"You're wrong," Hermione bit out, her eyes brimming with angry tears. How he could even think her so selfish, after everything she had done—after putting her life at risk to save his—was beyond her understanding. As she stared into his penetrating silver eyes, rimmed with violet, she felt the urge to hurt him as his words were tearing through her.

"Am I?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Tell me, Granger, after that night, how often did you think of me? Did you ever once extend an olive branch and try to save me _during_ the War? No. You left me to rot and now you can see how twisted and corrupt your lot has been all along, and so you are trying to make amends. As though your saving me is some fucking treat. I _wanted_ to die. I _still_ want to die."

Malfoy's gaze was strong and unwavering, piercing straight into her soul. Hermione looked down at where she wrung his bedding between her hands, eager to escape his stare. "You've plenty to live for. Plenty you never experienced—this is a second chance!" she implored, her voice not much more than a whisper.

He laughed, though there was no mirth behind it. "Like what? Find a bird, have some children and settle into life as an Australian muggle?"

Her eyes shot up to his, her lips falling apart. Her heart raced violently as his lips spread into a cruel smile. "I don't know what you mean," she told him, raising her chin in false defiance.

"Oh, Little Dove," he began, the sing-song quality of his tone mocking, "I believe you do."

That night in her home so many years before, he had uttered a confession that had stuck with her through the years. He had injured her father and drawn blood during a routine teeth cleaning. Draco Malfoy had watched her and her parents, stalked them. He _knew_ things that he had no business having knowledge of.

She wouldn't let him get under her skin, couldn't let him get the upper hand in this. Her resolve flickering, she pressed forward. "I saved you because I couldn't, in good conscience, let them put you out for slaughter. You're the only reason I'm even alive."

He simply raised an eyebrow as she wiped her sleeves across her face, only to have the wet tracks replaced by fresh ones. "You are so self-righteous, it's pathetic." His voice was a grating utterance, coarse and abrasive to her ears.

"Self-righteous? How do you come to that conclusion?" she yelled, raising her wand once more.

He made no effort to move at all and his unnerving pewter gaze lingered, unblinking. "You claim you are so unlike the rest."

"I am nothing like them. They've…lost their way."

He nodded once and pursed his lips. "'Lost their way'? They string us up like cattle and torture, maim, and kill us in more vile and cruel ways than I _ever_ inflicted on any mudblood!"

Hermione felt like the air had been knocked out of her lungs. He was absolutely right and the smirk that crossed his face as she grasped her stomach told her he knew that she acknowledged this. "Oh, and Granger?" Malfoy asked as she turned away from him and put a hand over her mouth, trying to keep the vomit from expelling. "Just so you know, _I've_ never held anyone hostage."

She was becoming just like them—her former friends, the proponents of the "Light." The Darkness was seeping in, overtaking her just as it did the others. Hermione had hoped for so long that she was successful in staving off the blackening advancements, that the Light she so desperately clung to would be enough to help her make it through.

"What's the matter, Dove? Did I shatter your grandiose perception of yourself?" Malfoy taunted behind her.

Tired of his jibes and cruelty, overcome with regret and anger that _he_ had to be the one to bring about said realization, Hermione turned quickly and smacked the bowl of porridge off of the tray. It landed in his lap, the steaming hot contents splashing across his front. He let out a hiss as it burned his wounds. "You fucking _bitch_."

As Hermione held her wand pressed against his throat, a wide smile spread across his face—pleased that he had drawn such a reaction from her. Hermione wrapped a hand around his throat and dug her nails into a place where she knew there was a large, unhealed laceration just below his ear. She put her knee between his legs, pressing down painfully where she knew it would matter as she leaned into him. His eyes watered in pain, but he clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her as she tightened her grip.

"You listen to me, _Draco_. I am the only reason you are alive right now, and the only reason your sorry arse may live to see tomorrow. At this point, I'm going to fight to keep you alive only for the sheer satisfaction of being able to watch you suffer through this second chance."

He was struggling to breathe deeply, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the shallow attempts as her palm pressed his trachea. Malfoy lifted his hands and placed them on either of her hips, gripping into the denim of her jeans tightly, no doubt leaving bruises. She let her knee up off of his groin and he would have let out a groan of gratitude, had she not had a hand around his throat. Hermione found that her breathing was just as labored in her anger and the tension in her hand eased some.

He was looking up at her, his eyes sparkling with a fiery anger. His lips parted and she could feel his breath hot across her face as he took in deeper inhalations. When he moved his hands up from the denim of her jeans and she felt his fingers tickle the skin under the hem of her jumper. Her heart hammering wildly in her chest, she slid her hand from the front of his neck to cup his jaw, running a finger over the light blond hair that had started to grow. Putting her mouth close to his other ear, she felt him shiver when her breath ghosted across his flesh. "Next time, you may want to rethink insulting the only person willing to give their life and freedom to ensure you live to see another day," she whispered before pushing herself away from him.

o-o-o

 **10 December 2003**

Over the next few days, neither of them talked about the heated row. In fact, they didn't speak at all. Hermione brought food to him before and after work, depositing it and bolting before he could decide to inundate her with foul and biting remarks. Malfoy said nothing, didn't acknowledge her presence at all. His wounds were closed and the bones healing crudely—a nicety for which he never thanked her.

Despite their silent impasse and lack of interaction, Hermione took note as the color returned to his cheeks, little by little. His face was still gaunt, but his eyes were brighter. He could sit up on his own and when she had come down that morning, he was standing under the thin shaft of light filtering through her dingy cellar window.

The air was stale, a chill in the air making it damp. Malfoy turned toward her, the dim light catching his hair in a halo of radiance. "It's fucking cold down here, Granger." He hugged his blanket closer around himself and turned his attention back toward the glass. "And this window is fucking filthy."

"I'm sorry I couldn't accommodate you a little more comfortably," she snipped, crossing her arms and walking toward him.

His sharp stare followed her every move, a strange look settling over his features. Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest as she approached, waving her wand to cast a warming charm over him. He was stronger now, much less vulnerable than he had been a week prior. Hermione felt the tingles of fear within her, making the hairs on the backs of her arms and neck stand at attention. Malfoy had made no malicious movements towards her, but she couldn't shake the feeling of danger now that he was able to move about on his own. Muggles were every bit as capable of harming someone without magic—if he could get her wandless, he would be at an advantage.

Malfoy looked at her expectantly and made a ' _well?'_ type of gesture. He had taken to his vow of silence once more and she found it much easier to concentrate on reading his intentions without him speaking. They were playing a delicate game, both waiting for the other to break. Who would be the one to speak about their prior encounters, the implications of Malfoy's absurd knowledge of her life?

He stayed still, mute. Hermione listened to his breaths, counted them as she looked him over. _Twenty-two... Twenty-three…_ His hands clutched the blanket closed, though she knew if he wanted to, he could easily reach up in his shackles and grab her. It occurred to her, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she would kill him, should he attack. _And he knew this_. He'd begged her to—it would be assisted suicide at that point.

He was staring down at her with a fearsome intensity that penetrated her mind and shook her bones within her. Malfoy watched her, knowing the cogs were turning in her head, a war raging with her. "Thinking of killing me?" he asked, and for the first time since he arrived, perhaps for the first time in years, he was amused.

She raised her chin. "No," she tried, though the grin that spread over his face told her that he knew she was lying.

He scoffed. "I'm not going to kill you—I have no magic. I'm _defenseless_."

Hermione pursed her lips as she regarded him. "I'm not worried about you killing me. When will we stop dancing around the subject and talk about the hippogriff in the room?"

"I'm not sure what you are talking about," he muttered, finally turning his gaze away from her.

The muscles in his jaw worked as she stared at him, remembering the way his cheek had felt pressed against hers so many years ago. His one selfless act. How had he managed it? _Why?_ "I'm tired. So, if we're done here—"

Hermione sat on the edge of the bed and began wringing her hands. "We're not done. Why don't you sit down?"

His demeanor was stiff, his expression guarded as he took her in for a brief moment. Succumbing to her request, he shuffled uncharacteristically toward the bed and sank onto the farthest corner of it. Nerves were eating her up, her hands shaking as she bounced one leg and bit at the corner of her thumb nail. "The Ministry is orchestrating searches of every employee's domain, right down to the old wizard who scrubs the loos."

Malfoy clucked his tongue and dropped his face into his hands, the blanket falling away from his shoulders as he leaned forward. "How long?" he questioned gruffly, his voice tight with tension.

"A couple of days, at most."

"How did you find this out?"

Hermione mimicked his positioning and rested her elbows on her knees next to him, hiding her face behind a curtain of curls. "Ernie Macmillan told me over lunch today."

"You're a fucking fool, you know that? Eating lunch with the Assistant Minister whilst harboring a fugitive," he barked, looking up from where his cuffed hands cradled his face. "Where will you hide me until then?"

Drawing her lip between her teeth, Hermione shrugged one shoulder in a small gesture. "Minerva said she would take you in and you could stay in her garden shed for a few days. The Ministry won't search her—she's been at Hogwarts this whole time."

"How did you speak to her, then?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes skeptically. "And why the fuck would she want to save me?"

Hermione plucked a coin from her pocket—one imbued with a Protean Charm. Avoiding his gaze, she replied, "Through these coins. She's one of us, wants justice to prevail—not Harry's skewed perception of Hammurabi's Code. Minerva knows everything that's happened since you arrived here."

"So you'll move me to her home. And then what? We come back here? What if the Ministry decides they need to do a second round of inspections?" his voice was demanding and rising in pitch as panic overtook him.

"I don't know why you're so worried—I thought you _wanted_ to die!" Her tone was accusatory as she stood, placing her hands on her hips as she did.

"I didn't risk my life for you, all so you could throw it all away on me, you stupid witch!"

There it was—Malfoy's first acknowledgement that he had made a conscious effort to ensure her safety earlier in life. The severity of his words, the harshness of his tone rang clear through the dank cellar. Shame unfurled over his features and he turned away from her. His voice was hoarse and he bowed his head. "When do we go?"

o-o-o

A/N: I hope some of you are sticking with me in this tale, even knowing that it will be unhappily ever after. Sometimes, you just need a twisted tale. I'm sorry I haven't updated since May. Forgive me. Please review!


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